Raglani

From St. Louis, electronic musician Joseph Raglani shapes ambient soundscapes by combining meditative drones with static washes built entirely from sound waves. His primary sources of inspiration include filmmakers Werner Herzog and Jean-Luc Godard, together with a wide range of experimental minimalists, space rock pioneers, and noise artists such as Nurse with Wound, Cluster, and Merzbow. Elements drawn from the shoegazer tradition further inform his approach, allowing him to stack successive layers of white noise. Rather than grounding his pieces in guitar distortion, he produces a soft, drowsy sonic texture almost entirely through knob adjustments and filter applications. Earlier, under the project name Ghost Ice, he focused on abrasive noise before turning his attention to the creation of dreamy textures via analog synthesizers and beginning to release material under his surname. After circulating a limited-edition CD-R on an informal basis, Raglani established an ideal partnership with Kranky that resulted in the 2008 appearance of Of Sirens Born.